Honorable Mention

Mark Snyder: Oboe and English Horn

Mark Snyder presented his New York Recital Debut to critical acclaim in March 2002 at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall as a prizewinner of the Artists International Competition. Active as a freelance artist, he has toured throughout the United States and Asia performing with various orchestras as a member of the oboe section and as a soloist. Some of his performances have included appearances with ensembles such as the Glimmerglass Opera Orchestra, Key West Symphony, Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional (Dominican Republic), Festival Musical de Santo Domingo, Binghamton Philharmonic, Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas, North Eastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Albany Symphony, Reading Symphony Orchestra, Delaware Symphony, Princeton Symphony, Allentown Symphony Orchestra, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Manhattan Chamber Orchestra and the Westchester Chamber Orchestra. Dr. Snyder’s Broadway credits include Les Miserables, Little Women, South Pacific, Tale of Two Cities, and The Phantom of the Opera.

Dr. Snyder has presented solo recitals at Trinity Church at Wall Street, The Cathedral of St. John the Divine; has recorded for Koch International Records, Albany Records; and is a founding member of the chamber ensemble Pastiche,winner of the Artists International Chamber Music Award in 2000. He is also a member of the oboe trio, Threeds, which recently recorded their debut CD, Unraveled.
Dr. Snyder began his musical studies at the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Arts and received his Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Connecticut, Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree, from the Mason Gross School of the Arts / Rutgers University. He has studied with Joseph Robinson, Matthew Sullivan, Keisuke Wakao, Ronald Roseman and Sandy Consiglio.

Dr. Snyder is on the faculty of Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ; Western Connecticut State University, Danbury, CT; Long Island University, LIU Post, Greenvale, NY; The Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville, NJ; and the New York Summer Music Festival. For more info visit: www.oboedextrous.com

Samuel Magill: Cello

Praised by the New York Times in 2010 for his “unimpeachable reading” of the Poulenc Cello Sonata, cellist Samuel Magill has had a rich and varied career as soloist and chamber musician. His first Naxos CD of the Cello Concerto of Vernon Duke was hailed as “flat-out magnificent” by the American Record Guide, while The Strad wrote in 2010 of his world premier recording of Franco Alfano’s Cello Sonata“…Magill’s husky, dark timbre matches the Cello Sonata’s yearning intensity to perfection…”. That CD was named as one of the “Ten Best Recordings of 2009” by Gene Gaudette’s blog www.synaphai.com.

Sam has appeared as soloist throughout Japan and the U.S., including performances of the Schumann Concerto and Brahms Double Concerto in Tokyo’s famed Suntory Hall and in Alice Tully Hall. Mr. Magill has partnered with the pianists Oxana Yablonskaya, Pascal Rogé and the late Grant Johannesen, and has given annual recitals since 1994 at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. He is a co-founder of The Elysian Ensemble, a Flute, Cello and Harp Trio. They made their New York debut at Weill Recital Hall to critical acclaim. Strings Magazine declared them “masters of their instruments”.

Mr Magill was educated at the Peabody Institute and Rice University. He is a former member of the Houston Symphony Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and was Artist in Residence at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville. He is currently a member of theMetropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York, and was formerly Associate Principal Cello. He was for nine summers Principal Cello and Soloist of the New York Symphonic Ensemble. As such he toured throughout Japan playing the concerti of Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saens, Dvorak, Dohnanyi, Schumann, Brahms and Beethoven. Three of these performances were recorded live by Panasonic.

Sam can be heard on several new CDs in 2012. For the Centaur labelhe recorded the 2010 Cello Sonata by Andrew Rudin with pianist Beth Levin, a world premier CD of the music of René de Castéra on the Azur label and two CDs on the new Urlicht label, one of which pairs the Korngold Suite with the magnificent Rhapsodie-Quartett by Joseph Marx.

Andy Wei-Yang Lin : Viola

Wei-Yang Andy Lin, born in Taiwan, recognized as one of the most promising young violists of today, is currently a Doctoral Candidate at the Stony Brook University of New York. He came to the U.S. in 1997 to attend the Idyllwild Arts Academy and holds his Bachelor and Master’s Degrees from The Juilliard School.

Mr. Lin has won numerous competitions including Taiwan National Viola Competition, the Idyllwild Concerto Competition, Top Prize in the 2008 Juilliard Viola Concerto Competition and subsequently made his Avery Fisher Hall solo debut with the Juilliard Orchestra. As the winner of the 2009 Stony Brook University Concerto Competition he performed the Walton Viola Concerto with Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra.
In addition to his solo career Mr. Lin is an avid chamber musician and is a member of the award winning string quartet, the Amphion String Quartet. The quartet was a winner of the 2011 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition and was recently selected to join the roster of the Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society Two for a three-year residency. They have won the First Prize in the Piano and Strings Category as well as the Audience Choice Award at the 2010 Plowman Competition. They also won the First Prize in the 2010 Kauder String Quartet Competition. Mr. Lin is also a member of the Musicians of Lenox Hill and has served as a principal violist of the International Sejong Soloists. He currently serves as principal violist of the Solisti Ensemble, the New York Classical Players and the Salome Chamber Orchestra. Additionally he has been privileged to perform for the former President of the United States, Bill Clinton and the former President of Taiwan, Ten-Hui Lee. He was also invited to perform chamber music with Itzhak Perlman where The New York Times described “Mr. Perlman, playing first violin… answered in kind by the violist Wei-Yang Andy Lin.” Mr. Lin is currently the artistic director of the New Asia Chamber Music Society and the New York Formosa Choir.

Bart Feller : Flute

Bart Feller is Principal Flute of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, a position he has held since 1989. He is also Principal Flute with the New York City Opera and Santa Fe Opera Orchestras. Mr. Feller has appeared as concerto soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Jupiter Symphony. He has also performed with the New York Philharmonic, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Bargemusic and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Julius Baker and John Krell. Among the summer festivals he has participated in are the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Marlboro Music Festival, OK Mozart International Festival, and the Grand Teton Music Festival. Mr. Feller attended the Pre-College Division of The Juilliard School, and is honored to be a faculty member there. He is also on the faculty of Rutgers University/Mason Gross School of the Arts. He has released two solo CDs, “Elysian Fields” and “20th-Century Duos”, and his Mozart Flute Quartets CD is now available.

William McNally : Piano

Pittsburgh native William McNally has been musically inclined since the age of three, and began his formal piano studies at age seven. Shortly after his ninth birthday, he performed for the first time in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall as a winner of the AMSA World Piano Competition; he has since played there three more times, once in Stern Auditorium as principal bassist of the Mt. Lebanon H.S. Orchestra, again in Weill Hall in a solo piano recital as winner of the Artists International competition, and most recently in Zankel Hall as director of two opera-shorts presented by the Remarkable Theatre Brigade.

A multifaceted musician, Mr. McNally has been widely recognized as a ragtime pianist and composer. He is the first three-time winner the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest’ New Rag Contest, and has appeared at ragtime festivals around the country. A CD release follows his particular interest in modern and classically trained ragtime composers, including Bolcom and Godowsky; currently, Mr. McNally is writing his doctoral dissertation on the reception history of revival-era ragtime composers.

Three more CDs are on the horizon for release; Mr. McNally has recently finished a recording of works by Brahms, Reger and Busoni, and a CD of Bolcom, Albright, Stravinsky and Mr. McNally’s own compositions is forthcoming later in 2013. Lastly, Mr. McNally recently was awarded an Elebash Research Grant to record – for the first time – the complete solo works of novelty-pianist Arthur Schutt, programmed alongside compositions by Vincent Matthew Johnson and Art Tatum.

In the spring of 2008, Mr. McNally inaugurated the Music4MS concert series, in an effort to raise funds and awareness for Multiple Sclerosis. He produced, directed, performed on, and wrote program notes for the series, which featured some of the brightest rising stars on the classical scene.

Mr. McNally is a veteran of numerous summer festivals, including Aspen Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, and Mannes’ International Keyboard Institute and Festival. In the summer of 2010, he received a fellowship to attend the Tanglewood Music Center. There, he collaborated on a premiere dance performance with the Mark Morris Dance Company, coached with musicians including Emanuel Ax, Peter Serkin, Dawn Upshaw and Oliver Knussen, and his performance of George Perle’s Concertino for Piano, Winds and Timpani was hailed as a “powerful performance” by the New York Times. Mr. McNally’s affiliation with Pianofest in the Hamptons spanned five seasons, where he was named Dean of Students. The roast chickens he produced there still garner raves.

With his wife, fellow pianist Daria Rabotkina, Mr. McNally studied at the Mannes College of Music, receiving Bachelors and Masters of Music degrees in piano performance. Following Mannes, he received a second Masters degree from Temple University, this time with a double major in piano pedagogy and chamber music. There he studied piano with Harvey Wedeen and collaborative piano with Lambert Orkis. He has performed in the master classes of such artists as Sergei Babayan, Claude Frank, Paul Schenly, Peter Serkin, Arie Vardi and Earl Wild, to name a few.

Recently, Mr. McNally served as Adjunct Professor of Piano and Artist-in-Residence at Temple University and taught at Settlement Music School. Currently he is in pursuit of a Doctorate of Musical Arts Degree at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center as a recipient of an Enhanced Chancellor’s Fellowship; there he studied with Ursula Oppens. He also serves as a teaching fellow at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, and is on the faculty of the New York Music and Arts School.

Helen Huang : Piano

Taiwanese-American pianist, Helen Huang, was first discovered by Maestro Kurt Masur upon winning the Young People’s Competition resulting in engagements with the New York Philharmonic and a recording contract with the Teldec record label. Known for immaculate technique and eloquent sensitivity, Ms. Huang has enjoyed to date a multi-faceted career as a soloist and chamber music player and can claim years of experience with an impressive list of performances with such orchestras as the Cleveland Orchestra, the National Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, and the Montreal Symphony. Abroad she has appeared with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, among others. An avid chamber musician, Ms. Huang has participated in the Marlboro Music Festival as well as Ravinia Steans Institute. The 2011-2012 season includes engagements with the Orchestre Nationale de France as well as with the Tonhalle Orchestra. Ms. Huang has several recordings available with Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic as well as newer releases available on the Delos and Naxos label. Helen received the Arthur Rubinstein Prize upon graduating from the Juilliard School, where she was a student of Yoheved Kaplinsky. She also received her Master’s degree from Yale. Helen currently teaches at the Juilliard Pre-College and resides in New York City.